By reading this post, you agree that you are solely responsible for your reaction to it. The poster takes no responsibility for any offense taken where none was meant. Except in cases of accidental microaggressions, in which case please explain it, so that we may better understand.

The City that Ended HungerA city in Brazil recruited local farmers to help do something U.S. cities have yet to do: end hunger.

Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market—you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you.

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The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce—which often reached 100 percent—to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.

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Another product of food-as-a-right thinking is three large, airy “People’s Restaurants” (Restaurante Popular), plus a few smaller venues, that daily serve 12,000 or more people using mostly locally grown food for the equivalent of less than 50 cents a meal. When Anna and I ate in one, we saw hundreds of diners—grandparents and newborns, young couples, clusters of men, mothers with toddlers. Some were in well-worn street clothes, others in uniform, still others in business suits.

“I’ve been coming here every day for five years and have gained six kilos,” beamed one elderly, energetic man in faded khakis.

“It’s silly to pay more somewhere else for lower quality food,” an athletic-looking young man in a military police uniform told us. “I’ve been eating here every day for two years. It’s a good way to save money to buy a house so I can get married,” he said with a smile.

No one has to prove they’re poor to eat in a People’s Restaurant, although about 85 percent of the diners are. The mixed clientele erases stigma and allows “food with dignity,” say those involved.

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The result of these and other related innovations?

In just a decade Belo Horizonte cut its infant death rate—widely used as evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population. One six-month period in 1999 saw infant malnutrition in a sample group reduced by 50 percent. And between 1993 and 2002 Belo Horizonte was the only locality in which consumption of fruits and vegetables went up.

The cost of these efforts?

Around $10 million annually, or less than 2 percent of the city budget. That’s about a penny a day per Belo resident.

Behind this dramatic, life-saving change is what Adriana calls a “new social mentality”—the realization that “everyone in our city benefits if all of us have access to good food, so—like health care or education—quality food for all is a public good.”

The Belo experience shows that a right to food does not necessarily mean more public handouts (although in emergencies, of course, it does.) It can mean redefining the “free” in “free market” as the freedom of all to participate. It can mean, as in Belo, building citizen-government partnerships driven by values of inclusion and mutual respect.

By reading this post, you agree that you are solely responsible for your reaction to it. The poster takes no responsibility for any offense taken where none was meant. Except in cases of accidental microaggressions, in which case please explain it, so that we may better understand.

Rev. Rowan Redbeard wrote:The City that Ended HungerA city in Brazil recruited local farmers to help do something U.S. cities have yet to do: end hunger.

You can't do anything like that in the U.S, it would go against everything the cult of deserving stands for.

Disclaimer: Anything I say on topics of Politics, Economics, Pychology, History, really anything not concerned with the natural sciences and mathematics and especially topics concerning human behavior and/or thoughts, that is not associated with a proper reference is pure speculation on my part.

Wow, that sounds like a great project. Social programmes like this should be par for the course, not exceptions to the rule. It's so very true that the benefits from showing such altruism go beyond the immediate and into the long-term, shaping the attitude of generations to come for the better. I will never understand the backlash against social welfare and medicine so prevalent in certain parts of the world today.

Roland Deschain - Half prophet, half gunslinger, all Pastafarian!

"Since Alexander Pearce escaped, over 250 people have disappeared in the Tasmanian wilderness. No remains have ever been found." - Dying Breed

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.'" - Carl Sagan

"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection." - Henri Poincaré

"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens."("Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.")-- Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805)Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-- Philip K DickWhat happens when all the renewable energy runs out?-- Victoria AylingEnglish isn't much of a language for swearing. When I studied Ancient Greek I was delighted to discover a single word - Rhaphanidosthai - which translates roughly as "Be thou thrust up the fundament with a radish for adultery."

I use them like the little boxes Thing used on the Addams Family TV show back in the day - go in this one, come out of that one - much cheaper than buying gas!

"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens."("Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.")-- Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805)Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-- Philip K DickWhat happens when all the renewable energy runs out?-- Victoria AylingEnglish isn't much of a language for swearing. When I studied Ancient Greek I was delighted to discover a single word - Rhaphanidosthai - which translates roughly as "Be thou thrust up the fundament with a radish for adultery."